Delhi Police on Friday lodged a case against Zee News channel at the Vasant Vihar police station for revealing the identity of the gang-rape victim by carrying an interview of her friend who was the lone witness in the case.

The case will be filed under Section 228 (A) of the Indian Penal Code, which pertains to disclosure of identity of victims of certain offences, including rape, Delhi Police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat said.

In the interview, the person severely criticised the time taken by the police to respond and the indifference of the public while he and the girl lay on the road after being thrown out of the bus.

“The bus occupants had everything planned. Apart from the driver and helper, others behaved like they were passengers. we even paid Rs.20 as fare. Then they started teasing my friend and same led to a brawl. I beat three of them up but then the rest of them brought an iron rod and hit me. Before I fell unconscious, they took my friend away,” he told Zee News.

“From where we boarded the bus, they moved around for nearly two and a half hours. We were shouting, trying to make people hear us. But they switched the lights of the bus off. We tried to resist them. Even my friend fought with them, she tried to save me. She tried to dial the police control room no.100, but the accused snatched her mobile away,” the male friend said.

He said before throwing them from the bus, “they snatched our mobiles and tore off our clothes in order to destroy any evidence of the crime”.

Recounting the sequence of events on that fateful night, he said, “after throwing us off the bus, they tried to mow us down but I saved my friend by pulling her away in the nick of time. We were without clothes. We tried to stop passers by.
Several auto rickshaws, cars and bikes slowed down but no one stopped for about 25 minutes. Then, someone on patrolling stopped and called the police,” he said.

Contradicting the police claims that they acted swiftly after being informed, he said three Police Control Room vans arrived at the scene only after about 45 minutes and wasted time in deciding under which police station’s jurisdiction the case fell.

The youth claimed that nobody, including the police, gave them clothes or called an ambulance. “They were just watching us,” he said, adding that after repeated requests, some gave him a part of a bed sheet to cover the girl.

Naresh Sharma/Firstpost

The 23-year-old medical student was gangraped and brutally assaulted when the the two boarded a bus around 9 PM Munirka area after watching a movie in a cinema hall on December 16.

The girl was later taken by a police patrol to a government hospital where she battled for life for several days before being flown to Singapore in an air ambulance for specialised treatment. However, she passed away on December
29.

Police had chargesheeted five men, including the driver of the bus and his brother, in the case and accused them of various crimes like murder, attempt to murder, gangrape, kidnapping and unnatural offences.

The sixth accused is a juvenile as he is a little under 18 although he is to be subjected to a bone density test to verify his age. He will be tried by the Juvenile Justice Board if he is a minor.